[artsy review] Gifts from Georgia’s Garden by Lisa Robinson and Hadley Hooper

May 14, 2024May 12, 2024 ~ jama ~ 5 Comments

American modernist painter Georgia O’Keeffe is best known for her meticulously rendered, large-scale depictions of flowers and stark desert landscapes — Oriental Poppies, serene Calla Lilies, fiery Red Canna, deer skulls and wildflowers floating above the horizon.

A fiercely independent nonconformist, O’Keeffe created abstract distillations of natural forms that gained international recognition and confirmed her stature as one of the most significant artists of the 20th century. O’Keeffe took a personal and provocative approach to art, seeking to create an equivalent of what she felt she was looking at, rather than merely copying it.

In their gorgeous new picture book, Gifts from Georgia’s Garden: How Georgia O’Keeffe Nourished Her Art (Neal Porter/Holiday House, 2024), Lisa Robinson and Hadley Hooper focus on how O’Keeffe’s art-centric lifestyle as a sustainable gardener fed her muse and enabled her to flourish as a painter. Deeply inspired by place and environment, Georgia believed everything was art, and art was everything.

The book opens with Georgia at her easel, painting “flowers so lush and large they filled the canvas.” This microscopic perspective enabled the viewer to appreciate a flower’s minute details. She hoped to make people in the city slow down and take the time to really see the beauty that she saw.

*Love the stunning case cover under the dust jacket!*

But Georgia grew tired of New York and fled to New Mexico, where she felt free amidst its canyons, mesas and skyscapes. The scent of the soil reminded her of growing up on a farm in Wisconsin, where she had developed her “love of wide skies and sweeping vistas.”

The golden shimmer of a field of wheat;
rectangular rocks, twisted sticks, oval leaves;
barns with haylofts, windows, and doors.

Early on, she knew she wanted to become an artist.

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two poems from the wonder of small things

May 10, 2024May 9, 2024 ~ jama ~ 13 Comments

“Sometimes, love looks like small things.” ~ Tracy K. Smith

I’m a big fan of James Crews’s poetry anthologies and often dip into them whenever I need a calming moment of reflection or a fresh dose of inspiration.

His third and most recent book, The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace & Renewal (Storey Publishing, 2023), contains some especially delectable food-related poems, two of which I’m sharing today.

Both poets pay homage to their Italian grandmothers, recalling childhood memories that continue to sustain and nourish.

THE LESSON 
by Paola Bruni

On Sundays, Grandmother alight on the altar
of making and I, only old enough to kneel
on a wooden chair beside her, watched.
From the cupboard, she unearthed a dusky
pastry board, flour formed into a heaping crater,
the center hollowed. Eggs, white as doves. Salt.
Cup of milk, fragrant and simple. No spatula.
No bowl or mixer. Just a pastry board
and Grandmother's naked, calcified fingers
proclaiming each ingredient into the next.
She murmured into the composition
until the dough fattened, perspired, grew
under her ravenous eye. A rolling pin
to create a still, quiet surface. Then, the point
of a sharp knife chiseling flags of wide golden noodles.
For days, the fettuccini draped from wooden 
clothing racks in her bedroom under the scrutiny
of Jesus and his Mother. Mornings, I slipped
into Grandmother's bed, dreamt about eating noodles
swathed in butter and the sauce of a hundred
ripe tomatoes roasted on the fire.

~ from The Wonder of Small Things: Poems of Peace and Renewal, edited by James Crews (Storey Publishing, 2023).

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nine cool things on a tuesday

May 7, 2024May 4, 2024 ~ jama ~ 8 Comments

1. Hey, hey, hey, it’s May! Breathe in that fresh air. Revel in the flowers and make like a butterfly. Or perhaps you’re up for a lovely picnic?

UK artist Jenny Miriam’s charming digital illustrations celebrate the joys of nature, the sweet adorableness of small animals, and the fun of working and playing together.

Now based in Bristol, Jenny grew up in “the mysterious and magical county of Cornwall,” where she found joy and inspiration in the natural world, from the strange sea life in rock pools to the beautiful wildflowers that grew from seeds carried across the Mediterranean.

After earning a BA in Graphic & Packaging Design and an MA in Multimedia, Jenny worked as a digital and print designer for 18 years. She was always most at home with illustrative work, and today enjoys creating with painty textures and Procreate on her iPad.

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“Ode to Gray” by Dorianne Laux

May 3, 2024May 2, 2024 ~ jama ~ 36 Comments

“I like the muted sounds, the shroud of grey, and the silence that comes with fog.” ~ Om Malik

ODE TO GRAY
by Dorianne Laux

Mourning dove. Goose. Catbird. Butcher bird. Heron.
A child’s plush stuffed rabbit. Buckets. Chains.

Silver. Slate. Steel. Thistle. Tin.
Old man. Old woman.
The new screen door.

A squadron of Mirage F-1’s dogfighting
above ground fog. Sprites. Smoke.
“Snapshot gray” circa 1952.

Foxes. Rats. Nails. Wolves. River stones. Whales.
Brains. Newspapers. The backs of dead hands.

The sky over the ocean just before the clouds
let down their rain.

Rain.

The seas just before the clouds
let down their nets of rain.

Angelfish. Hooks. Hummingbird nests.
Teak wood. Seal whiskers. Silos. Railroad ties.

Mushrooms. Dray horses. Sage. Clay. Driftwood.
Crayfish in a stainless steel bowl.

The eyes of a certain girl.

Grain.

~ from Only As the Day is Long: New and Selected Poems (W.W. Norton & Co., 2020)

*“Dust Motes Dancing in Sunbeams” by Vilhelm Hammershøi* *(1900).*

What’s the first thing you think of when the color gray is mentioned? Dull, drab, boring, noncommittal? Neither black nor white (yet both), gray hovers in-between, taking a neutral, indifferent stance.

We associate gray with aging and cloudy days. Having worked in many office settings, I’ve seen my share of gray cubicles and file cabinets, copy machines and shredders. Gray is institutional, business-like, a calling card for conformity.

In Europe and North America, only about 1% of those surveyed consider gray their favorite color.

And yet . . .

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